2024 vs 2023 White Sox Pitching

I’ll admit it. I spend entirely too much time on Twitter (or X). I like to go there to socialize, to read funny things and mostly to talk about the White Sox with many of yous. Lately I feel like I keep seeing the same types of posts about the White Sox and concerns about their pitching.

Say Moncada goes off and has a contract year… Eloy is healthy… Robert repeats 2023… and Vaughn proves people wrong, how does that affect the 61 wins from last year? Keep in mind what the pitching looks like. #WhiteSox

— Nick Murawski (@Nick_GGTB) January 30, 2024

Meanwhile, the White Sox will continue to assemble a pitching staff where the only requirement is to serve up giant meatballs.

— DJ Bilirubin (@MrBilirubin) January 28, 2024

The Whitesox are going into the season w/ bad offense, bad starting pitching, bad bullpen and bad coaching. With zero expectations I hope they at least try to make something happen on the basepaths and lead the league in stolen base attempts so we have something to watch.

— nashville-whitesox (@GetFoul_ItWill) January 20, 2024

This got me wondering, is the White Sox pitching expected to be a lot worse than last year? Last year we had a lot of name brand talent lining up to start the season and then Mike Clevinger was added to the fold quickly in the off-season. He was much maligned both for on and off the field activity and was considered a bit of a question mark. However, the Lynn’s, Giolito’s and Cease’s of the world came in with big expectations and really didn’t deliver….

The 2023 White Sox Pitching Staff’s Results

The cutout below is from Fangraphs and the 2023 White Sox pitchers failed to hit the mark finishing 26th in MLB in ERA.

Not great. I know, some of yous are saying, Beef, ERA is imperfect at times, so let’s check out the FIP. FIP, here yous go.

By FIP, looks like the White Sox are once again 26th. 4.71 FIP, which is slightly better than their 4.88 ERA…maybe they were a bit unlucky…l0lz. Now after reviewing this, my curiosity got the best of me. Does ZiPS think the 2024 rag tag bunch will be worse than this? Genuinely interested in this comparison.

2024 ZiPS White Sox Pitching Staff

There’s our gorgeous rag-tag crew. Only one problem when looking at this ZiPS cut out. The group has 1,600 innings for this estimate and that’s just way too many. Usually a pitching staff lands in the 1,450 inning range, so yours truly will need to make some adjustments.

Adjustment #1 is that we’ll crank down Dylan Cease’s innings from 170 to 110. I assume ole Dylan baby will be here until sometime in late July. Adjustment #2 to get us on the right track is changing Garrett Crochet’s innings down from 77 to 0. LOL. I’m going to give the big fella a mulligan on his attempts to be a starting pitcher and say that goes fine, but it all happens in the great american south and none in Chicago. Now let’s look at it, with the team ERA and FIP compared to last year’s.

Holy Sheet!!! (Gavins). The 2024 ZiPS projection for the goofy pile is actually edging out the 2023 pitching staff. I really was not expecting that. And these are median projections, which tend to be conservative by nature. Does this give you a bit of optimism for 2024? No? I think it does give me just a smidge of glass-half-fulled-ness. Hope if you will. I mean, not just the projection, because that also looks like another 25th or 26th ranked pitching staff, which is not great, but there’s a couple of other things at play here that aren’t noted in the cold hard numbers, that Dan Szymborski arduously gestates for our future consumption, that are worth our consideration.

Reason One for Hope about the White Sox Pitching Staff

Chris Getz told us he would fix the defense and he has materially FIXED THE DEFENSE. There is potential for even more to come depending on what domino ends up standing in right field at March 28th and beyond. An improved defense not only has a chance to have actual runs allowed sneak ahead projected FIP, but it has accretive effects on your pitching staff as whole. Maybe not enough to anoint the rowdy assemblage as a success, but let’s say it’s a rounding error in the right direction.

Reason Two for Hope about the White Sox Pitching Staff

I hate to pick on the fat bastard…err wait, no I don’t. The White Sox aren’t married to much if any of this pitching staff. Remember in 2023, when Lance Lynn was an abomination to the profession of pitching. Giving it up more than Catherine Tramell in Basic Instinct.

Yea, well there was really no recourse to removing him from the rotation, either by reputation or because there just weren’t even more live bodies available to start a game. Remember how long the White Sox stuck with Michael Kopech? Yea..yea. What about gutting it out through Aaron Bummer appearances? Still had to pitch him, he’s a mainstay, part of THE CORE!! Or even thinking back to 2022 when many of yous wanted Lucas Giolito to take up an opener.

Good news friends. Other than Dylan Cease’s abbreviated stay at the hotel Guaranteed Rate, you don’t owe these other dudes a got-damned thing. Which means, if one option stinks, in the fucking oven they go head first (or role reduced, cut, or sent down to Charlotte).

Moving off of the poor choices and on to new choices that have a chance to be not poor has upside. You might actually find one that works and you have assembled a roster that allows it, no matter how unglamorous it may be.

-BeefLoaf